Freedom of speech is first constitutional right
Political commentators often compare President Yoon Suk Yeol to Donald Trump.
Like the former U.S. president, critics say Yoon backtracks on female, labor issues and environmental policies. Trump attacked segments of the media that were critical of him, calling them "fake news," and Yoon's aides attacked unfriendly media by describing them as "distorted and hostile."
Yoon's relationship with some public broadcasters, including MBC, has been particularly strained. It was discovered that about a month ago, the Foreign Ministry filed a lawsuit against MBC, demanding a correction to its previous report regarding Yoon's remark during his visit to New York in September.
According to a video aired at the time by MBC on its official YouTube channel, Yoon, after having a brief chat with U.S. President Joe Biden, turned to his aides and appeared to say, "It would be quite embarrassing for Biden if those (expletive) at Congress don't approve (this bill)."
A "lip-reading" battle then ensued between Yoon's aides and the broadcaster.
The presidential office accused MBC of maliciously subtitling Yoon's half-soliloquy, claiming that what sounded like "Biden" was actually a Korean word. The aides added that the expletive was also aimed at Korean political opponents, not U.S. Congresspeople.
The foreign ministry complained that the broadcaster hurt national efforts by forcing the ministry to use up its energy in order to restore damaged Korea-U.S. ties. However, immediately after the clash, the U.S., which highly values press freedom, made clear that it didn't matter, saying, "U.S.-South Korea ties remain firm." The ministry's move was nothing but a delayed venting of anger on behalf of the president.
Yoon, now on a weeklong tour of the UAE and Switzerland, provided another tidbit of news for foreign media. In November, Yoon's aides banned MBC reporters from boarding the presidential jet to report on his Southeast Asian tour. However, before the departure for the ongoing trip, the presidential office relented and allowed MBC reporters to board Air Force One again. It then attributed the ban being lifted to the president's "broad-minded decision to maximize national interests."
Most Koreans know that the U-turn on journalists boarding the plane was due to criticism, from home and abroad. Yoon's secretaries should have apologized for infringing on the public's right to know by excluding some journalists from boarding the presidential jet.
It is their "duty" to provide a certain level of convenience for reporters who are covering the chief executive, and it's not the government's "right" to refuse access to facilities run with taxpayer money. Likewise, Yoon should not have escalated the controversy over his expletive by simply being frank and explaining what he said. Who would care so much about a private conversation between the president and his aides, even if there were some direct, shall we say, expressions?
Even more problematic were the loyalists within the governing party.
Rep. Chung Jin-seok, the leader of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), questioned how right-wing media outlets could criticize a conservative leader. PPP lawmakers went further, with some calling for a reshuffle of the managers of MBC, privatizing the public broadcaster, and even blocking advertisements. These kinds of comments remind the Korean public of the "media oppression" days under former President Park Chung-hee in the mid-1970s. Welcome to a half-century ago when the Dong-A Ilbo daily kept their ad pages blank and ran the paper with readers' donations.
It's worrying that the government's carrot-and-stick approach toward the media seems to be working in some ways. Of the 55 media outlets that carried the news of Yoon's so-called generous decision to let MBC reporters board the presidential jet, only four, including The Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times, reported it with a critical angle, with the others handling it like straight news as if this kind of carry on is completely normal.
According to foreign reports, an African country born in 2011 recently arrested six staff members from a state broadcaster over the circulation of footage appearing to show their president urinating on himself during an official event.
Should Koreans, especially media outlets, be content that reporters here were not arrested but were refused access to cover an official overseas trip?
